I'm Sorry
by Lexi1989
Summary: After ten years, he gets the courage to tell her everything he feels. Oneshot


WARNING! THIS IS A SAD ONESHOT.

This is for you **Anilissa** ;)

 **xoxo Lexi1989**

* * *

 **I'M SORRY**

It's been ten years. 120 months exact to the day. He stands with his head held high, the splitting image of the powerful man that he is. To a passerby, they would think he is crazy, standing out there in the field. His dark suit and crimson tie getting drenched in the midst of the pouring rain. They would not see the tears trickling in a steady flow from his dull, lifeless crimson eyes. The rain would be his disguise. For no one, not anyone has ever seen Natsume Hyuuga cry. With the exception of his younger days where it was natural for a kid to cry, from age 10 onwards, not even his best friend saw him cry. He had mastered the art of masking his true emotions. And he was the best there was at it. There was only one person who was brave and worthy enough to tear down the high walls he had built around himself. One person who saw what others didn't and got through to him. And she was there with him now.

* * *

Life after Alice Academy had been his freedom. Freedom from the chains of doing missions. Freedom from being selfless and trying to save so many people when he himself was dying to be saved. She had saved him from the darkness that had encompassed him. And so it came quite naturally that after being freed from the academy, they moved on to a life in the real world. They moved on from mastering their alices to getting a job that paid the rent and bills. They had moved in together after graduation, seeing as since the tender age of eleven, he had already professed his undying love for her. That she was his no matter what happened. Now they were thirty five. And here he was standing in front of her after ten years. Not knowing what to say. She was always one that could render him speechless at certain times. Times when it mattered. The rest of the time, it was the other way around. He thought back to their more happy times.

They had gotten a two bedroom apartment near where they worked. He had decided to become a lawyer at a very reputable firm. He was always at the top of his class and she supported him through law school. She on the otherhand, with her gentle and caring nature, pursued a nursing career. She was good with kids and handling people in general, even if she was a bit dense. At first it had been heaven. Always coming home to the person you love. He would pick her up from the hospital at the end of his workday. He had just started as a junior lawyer for a very famous criminal lawyer. He had his nine to five days. He was always diligent in his work. But he kept up to date with her schedule. She worked in shifts. And when time permitted, he would take her out for dinner after work or pick her up and cook up her favorite dishes at home. She would help him on her off days and make him tea when he was stressed out. They would spend Sundays, cuddling on the couch doing crossword puzzles or watching movies. They had fallen into an easy routine.

His intelligence and diligence paid off in just a year. He got promoted to a senior lawyer at the young age of twenty five. And that's when things started to fall apart. He spent more time at the office than with her. The dinners together and dates on their days off were replaced by take out boxes for one. One eaten in the confines of his corner office in the tall forty storeyed building of his company. One discarded into the trash bin in the kitchen of their home. He would call sometimes, if he was not busy reviewing case notes and files, to remind her of something. Pick up the dry-cleaning perhaps, or that they had run out of milk. The calls became less and less as his job demanded more and more from him. He would return in the wee hours of dawn to find her asleep on the couch with two teacups in front of her. One empty, the other one full of his favorite chamomile tea. He would pick her up and carry her to the bedroom before retiring for three hours of sleep and returning again to the office before she woke up to carry on with his paperwork.

He was aiming to be a partner by the next year. With his track record, he knew he could make it. It wouldn't be easy, but it certainly wasn't impossible. He just needed to put in more time. Time that he barely had for himself or his girlfriend. Time he would now regret not giving to her. But he didn't know it back then. Back then, he was only wanting the best for her. To give her the life she deserved. The crème de la crème. The more he was succeeding, the less he knew about what was going on in her life. She had always supported him in what he did. And she had never wavered. Even when at some point in the past couple of years, his job demanded her time as well. She had stopped working so that she could spend his free time with her. Without having to track shift schedules and day offs. He was fine with it. He could easily support her. Even if they could barely hold up a conversation with his phone ringing due to a break in the case, or a witness being found for deposition, she would always smile and give him the encouragement. They would be at dinner in a restaurant or brunch at a café, when his phone would ring with an important call or an email that needed his immediate attention. She would always tell him that she understands.

"Go. You need to do what you have to. I'm always here for you."

She would smile and turn to the waiter for the check. Little did he know that in the few seconds she turned her back on him, it was so that she could hide the glassy beads of moisture forming in the corners of her eyes and compose herself. She loved him dearly. And she would love him always. She knew he was an important person in his job and he would be home later. Once the case was won and justice was served. Once the families of those who were wronged were vindicated. There would always be later for her. She was always that selfless.

* * *

He had come home one night drunk, after a celebratory dinner was held in his honor for winning a case. It was tradition in the firm to do so. She was asleep in the bedroom. He stumbled in, quite clumsily which was unlike him, while taking off his shoes. Her laptop was open beside her and he was surprised. She was the one who would normally chide him if he left his laptop on the bed. She was the type to worry so much about the heat causing fire to catch on the bedding and all those ridiculous posts on social media about safety. He was about to close it when a message popped up on her social media account. It was a guy. Someone he didn't know. His drunken state caused his brain to function more illogically than he would be. He threw the laptop on the floor, causing her caramel eyes to pop open and her sitting abruptly on the bed, and looking into his crimson eyes filled with rage.

"Natsume?" She called out sleepily.

"What the fuck was that?" he had shouted at her gesturing wildly at the broken laptop. She was now fully awake and was surprised at his tone.

"What do you mean? Are you alright?" She immediately stood up and came to his side.

"Don't touch me, you bitch." She stiffened at his harsh words.

"What is the matter with you? Are you drunk?" She tried to reach out to him but he walked away and stalked to the living room.

"I am working my fucking ass off for you. To give you everything that you want. And this is what you do to me? I come home, after winning a case and earning money, to find you swapping facebook messages with some random guy?" He opened his own laptop and logged into her facebook account. The rage and jealousy overlooking the fact that he even knew her password.

"What are you blabbering about? What guy?" He shoved the laptop in her arms and she looked at the message she had received. It was from an old friend, back in the day, before she came to the academy. He was from the village and he was in town. He had found her on social media and was inviting her out for coffee along with other friends from back then.

"Natsume, listen to me." She was calm. She knew that arguing with him would only fuel his anger.

"You cannot tell me what to do." He told her.

"He's just a friend. An old friend. He asked me to go to a small gathering of friends from my old village back home." She explained.

"Whatever." He had brushed her off, not believing a word she had said. She let him go to sleep and figured he will be sane in the morning. Excusing his behaviour as a consequence of his drunkenness. She cleaned up the broken pieces of her laptop and figured she would call her best friend to help fix it. She was always good at technology so maybe her laptop could still be saved.

* * *

The next few months were spent almost the same for the last two and a half years. The exception being, his free time was now spent with his friends at a bar. Most of the time, with other women. He was never the one to care what anyone thought. But he also knew, she was attached to their previous posse of friends and not really to his corporate friends. She didn't know anything. He justified his (what he now realized was idiotic) actions to payback. Revenge for what she did. He was with one of his lady friends when he got a call from an unknown number.

"Who is this?" He barked into the phone. This call had interrupted his time in the sheets with the sexy secretary from a different department at the office.

"Hyuuga, where are you?" The icy voice said from the other end.

"What do you want Imai?" He spat out the name with so much venom. He never liked her best friend.

"Considering that you have been ignoring this idiot, i dont think you deserved to know, but your best friend bunny boy forced me to call you." She said

"Cut the crap. What do you want?" He hissed. He dismissed the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach that something's wrong.

"Mikan is in the hospital. She fainted awhile ago. Though I doubt, by the giggling I hear in the background,that you give a fuck about what's happened to your girlfriend. But I guess it won't matter. We're at St. John's if you want to come. But we don't need your presence anyhow." And then she had hung up. Leaving him dazed and confused.

He felt like he was suddenly slapped back to reality. He grabbed his keys and jacket, and left the half naked woman on the bed without a word. He started to go to his car but knew he was too intoxicated and would maybe end up in the emergency room himself if he drove, so he called a cab. It took him half an hour to get from the hotel to the hospital at the other side of town. He was always discreet when going out with his lady friends. He would always pick a bar or hotel where he knew nobody from their old circle would run into him and his indiscretions. He cursed himself for being an asshole. It took another half hour to find where his and her best friend was. And when he found them, he was confronted with the wrath of her best friend's baka gun. It was an old invention from their academy days, but still it proved useful to her.

"YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE HERE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" She had screamed at him.

He rubbed the spots she had hit him with but said nothing. He glanced at his best friend who gave him a pointed look. Never once in his life did he see Ruka look at him with so much contempt. Even back then when Ruka had confessed his love for Mikan, and when Mikan chose him, Ruka had always put him first. Because Ruka knew he needed Mikan. He needed her then. He put his head on his hands, thinking deeply. Why didn't I need her now? What happened to us?

Hotaru's brother was the doctor attending to Mikan. He called Hotaru to his office.

"I know everything." Ruka said quietly.

"Do you now?" The raven haired boy asked the blonde sarcastically.

"I never should have let you have her. If i knew you were just going to treat her like this." The blonde was furious. His gentle nature was still prevailing becasue he knew Mikan would never forgive him if he hurt Natsume. But his tone was like Hotaru's. Cold as ice.

"What the hell are you talking about Ruka?"

"Did you know, that she was unhappy?" He looked Natsume straight in the eye. "She would call us you know, that she was bored, she was lonely, that you never do anything with her anymore because you were busy." Ruka was now staring at the emergency room door blankly. Natsume just sat there dumbfounded.

"She would call and tell us what was happening in her day. And we all, at one point or another, gave her a few minutes of our time. Most of the time it was Hotaru. Or me. Or Sumire and Koko. Tsubasa and Misaki, or Anna. Yuu, Nonoko, she even got through to Mochu once! We all gave her an hour or two from our busy schedules to have coffee with her or lunch, or dinner. That's certainly just a fraction of the amount of time you were spending with those women, right?"

"She called when she found out you were having an affair. Mikan is slow, but she certainly isn't that stupid. Not as stupid as you, leaving lipstick on your collars or having thongs in your pockets. But then again you were in to that perverted stuff even back in the day." Ruka laughed a hollow laugh.

"But you know what's worse Natsume?" Ruka was now looking at him again. Contempt clearly showing in his eyes. "She defended you! She FUCKING DEFENDED YOU for your idiotic actions!" His voice was louder now. The nurses at the nearby nurse station were trying not to be obvious with their eavesdropping. I cringed.

"He will always come back to me. She said that to us. With a fucking smile. Can you believe that?" Ruka was shaking.

"She sacrificed everything for you. Because she wanted you. Your happiness. She gave up her job. She gave up the dream of having a family. She gave up everything. But she never gave up on you." His words were deepening the knife that was pierced in Natsume's heart.

* * *

The pain is still fresh after ten years. His heart was heavy, full of regrets. Full of what if's. And he told her all of this now. He never was good with expressing his feelings. Except for those times when he was angry, or pissed off. But all of this love stuff, was the one thing he was never good at. He's intelligent, but he had never understood the feeling of unconditional love. Until he met her. And he did love her. He always had. He was better at showing her how he loved her than telling it to her with sweet flowery words. Even up to now. Even after ten years of pining after her.

He was just stupid back then. And it cost him his life. It caused him to lose her.

And he knew she loved him back. No matter how much he hurt her. No matter how despicable and unforgiveable his actions loved him. And it made him even more miserable. Knowing she would never ever stop loving him. No matter how fucked up he was back then. He knelt down on the grass.

"I'm sorry Mikan."

 **He traced his fingers on the letters of her name on her gravestone. For ten years ago to this day. Mikan Sakura died.**

 **END.**

* * *

 **Bonus scene: Hotaru**

I walk into the ICU towards the small figure on the bed. A lot of medical contraptions strapped to her to monitor and assist her breathing. She looked pale, broken and fragile.

I am not the type of person who cries. In this case, I still do not shed tears for I am the one who normally insults this person if she cries. I'm not gonna give her the satisfaction of doing that to me.

"Baka, why didn't you tell me?" I asked as I sat down next to her. I knew she wouldn't answer.

"Hotaru." She used the telepathy alice she had stolen years before and inserted into me. Even then in our minds, her voice was hoarse and weak. So unlike her. "You know I don't want anyone to worry about me."

"You really are an idiot, you know." I told her. I held her hand.

"Hotaru, can you do me a favor?" She asked me. I nodded, not trusting my own voice. I could see her slowly fading away from me.

"Don't hate him." I knew who she was talking about.

"Hate is such a mild word. I believe what you want to say is KILL." I put on my unfeeling voice but deep inside I am raging. Even on her deathbed, she still thinks about him. She is still concerned about him. She still loves him.

She coughed when she tried to laugh. "Mou~ Hotaru, promise me. Don't hate the man I love."

Her coughing fit never ended. A machine in the room beeped loudly and a nurse roughly shoved me aside and my brother ushered me out the door. I panicked and shouted out her name. She had her hand outstretched and with her life hanging on by a thin piece of thread,she spoke in my mind. "Promise me Hotaru."

"I promise." I turned to leave the room then. And by the flat line tone of her heart monitor. I knew she was gone.

* * *

 **Sooooo.. I was crying writing this bonus scene. It just seemed better this way. Because we all know Mikan loves Hotaru too.**

 **I don't really know what to say. My heart is a bit heavy after writing this.**

 **I'm off to work so I'll update my other stories tomorrow :)**

 **Read, Follow, Favorite and Leave a Review**

 **xoxo Lexi1989**


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